Monday on The New Unfiltered will be a solo episode with *yours truly* going into why I stopped making New Year’s Resolutions.

One thing I can tell you is that the last week of the year always gives me severe anxiety and I can’t figure out if it’s because everyone is out of office or because I have so much shit I want to accomplish in 2022 that I have more anxiety thinking about.

What do I do? Chill out and remember I’m not running out of time. This mindset gets easier for me every year I get older but I still struggle with remembering it’s okay if I don’t want to do anything for a day or if I want to stay in bed till noon. Does anyone care besides me, will I get less work done because I choose to not do anything for a few extra hours?

No. No. No.

Shift your mindset, change your life.

People make common New Year’s resolutions/goals/whatever you want to call it: drop 5 pounds, eat healthier, drink less, etc. and I get it. I’m not saying that having a resolution is a silly idea: actually quite the opposite. My issue with New Year’s goals is that they frequently end after the first few months or weeks of the new year and then you may fall into this hole of negativity with a negative mindset because you didn’t get to June and drop your 30 pounds by then.

Everything comes down to mindset. I struggle pretty deeply with living in the moment – it doesn’t work for me as much as it should for someone my age. I envy 24-year-olds who go out and party and wake up and live their day with 4 hours of sleep. I value something like being in bed by 10:22 PM so I can wake up between 6-7 AM (because if I don’t I’m convinced I ruined my day), starting to eat my meals around 1/2 PM but if I start eating around noon I wonder if I should’ve waited an additional hour and so on… so much to where if I don’t do that and wake up feeling even the slightest bit tired – I get mad at myself. Typing this out I remember I’m neurotic and I love being that way!

The downside: I didn’t realize I was missing out on really important conversations and opportunities until I was in Dallas a few weeks ago for work and was visiting a friend of mine who definitely loves to drink AND works in finance – I prepared myself for three days where I’d sleep less than 9 hours, stay up way past 10:22 and remind myself to shut the f*** up the next day when I wanted to get mad at myself for doing everything I avoid on weekdays like staying out late and having fun.

Do you know what happened when I tried this new mindset out for three days? I literally have never made so many solid connections, ate incredible food and fancy champagne, and walked away from Dallas feeling so proud of myself I got out of my comfort zone in the “smallest” way – by changing my mindset.

I have goals, tons of them! But that exact reason above is why I’m making one resolution and one resolution only: live in the freakin’ moment. I’ve tested this out over the past weeks, explaining myself less to people especially my friends who always have my best interests at heart but sometimes you have to follow your own heart more, staying out later and waking up later, and saying no to activities or people I don’t see the need to hang out with.

I stopped caring so much about what people think about me or how I’d upset someone if I said no to an offer to go out with them and I realized there is no better way to live.

My life has improved significantly over the past month by testing this out and I didn’t need a new year to realize I have right now, right here to live my life to the fullest. If I’m with someone in a moment or over the course of a week and I’m happy in that moment, nothing else matters because they may not be there tomorrow. I don’t ever want someone else to pick me back up when I’m down besides myself and best friends at this point in my life. That may shift as some point or it’ll stay a constant – being comfortable letting yourself make your own decisions based solely on what you’re feeling in the moment is a very powerful feeling.

If you need to make one resolution, make it to remind yourself that you’ll get to your end goal- but you still only have right now.

ENTER HERE!